It’s telling that even in a world where everyone wants to slow down Harden, he can drive around a Capela screen against the majority of opponents and waltz all the way to the rim. You may think of Capela as a sort of decoy in those scenarios. You would be wrong. “Decoy, in a sense of if they take him away, then he’s a decoy,” Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni said. “But if they don’t take him away, no, he’s a main thrust of what we do. He has the ability to be able to put pressure on the rim with lobs and bounce passes and finishes. Sucks the defense in—that gives our three-point shooters shots. He makes our offense go.” […] “Steve Nash had Amar’e and John Stockton had Malone,” D’Antoni said. “You know, you can’t have one without the other.”

I'm wrapping up the final potty training of my parenting career, l breaking down Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals and just watched Austin Meadows deliver OVER 8.5 in the 9th. Maybe @Twitter will help me commemorate this occasion with a pop-up reminder hologram in a decade.

Victor Oladipo is yet another example of the need to be cautious with draft analysis until many years after the draft. 4 years after he was picked he was viewed as a decent player, but not someone who lived up to his #2 selection. And now, 5 years after his draft, he’s All-NBA.